Yes, I know, the first two went much longer than you imagined. That’s OK. When something is important you need to process it and develop it more fully. Parts 3 and 4 of the relationships God created though go hand in hand so I want to deal with them together.
The third relationship God created relates to psychology. In Genesis 2:17, the Scripture says, “it is not good for man to be alone…” I find this very interesting about the psychological needs that God placed in the man he had created. God who transcends all things and had the ability to speak into creation anything God wished, seemingly chose to create man in such a way that there was something within the man that even God could not fulfill.
With this acknowledgement, God then brings all the animals before Adam and Adam names the animals. In the Hebrew mind set, a name describes the personality and character of the one being named. The implication is that Adam got to know the creation individually. He saw their shape and size but also their mannerisms and characteristics. From this knowledge he gave them a name. But, in the midst of this activity, there was no part of the creation that met the needs of the man.
And why was it important for Adam to find a partner? God had created man in God’s image. If you take the Christian understanding of God that God is a relational being made up of Father, Son and Holy Spirit making One God, then it is only natural that the created man would need someone of like kind to himself with whom he could be in relationship. So, man by himself was not complete and whole. He needed a partner to make him complete.
Just a side note… Over the years I have been asked by a good number of people if I thought God intended for them to be celibate, ie., not have an intimate life partner. After all, in 1 Corinthians 7:7 the Apostle Paul says, I wish that all were as I myself am (celibate). But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. “Am I to be like Paul? Is my lot in life celibacy?Is that me,” they query?
My response has generally been, “I don’t know.” I then go on to explain more about a word the Apostle used in that verse. The word for “gift” is charisma, the same as the word used for spiritual gifts such as healing, prophecy, speaking in tongues, etc. For me the implication is that true celibacy is a spiritual gift given by the Holy Spirit for the benefit of the Body of Christ. It transcends the order of creation in which God said, “It is not good for man to be alone.” When God gives the gift of celibacy the relational part of creation must be developed in other ways or we become loners and as we have seen in the aberrant psychology of mass murderers, it is often the alone, isolated individual who does bad things. “So,” I would continue, “If you have a deep-seated desire to have an intimate relationship with another person and that desire is a powerful force within you, then I would guess that you have not received the spiritual gift of celibacy from God and simply need to learn to wait and allow God to develop you to being the right person for an intimate relationship.
That leads to the fourth relationship God created, intimacy. The God who created Adam, the God who knew him so well and knew he had an inner need that neither God nor animal could meet, caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep and…you know the rest of the story at the end of Genesis 2. God created woman out of man!! When Adam came out of his deep surgical sleep he in essence proclaimed, "Right On, God!! Finally, you got it right!!”
There is an important highlight in the creation of Eve that we need to talk about. It impacts the scope of many parts of the dialogues of women’s rights and, especially in more conservative churches, the role of women within society and the life of the church. My conservative brothers believe that because Eve was created 2nd, she should not have leadership in the church. She should be submissive to man. They can certainly find justification for those thoughts in some of the writings of the Apostle Paul (although not all of them). For me there are two defining words from this part of the creation story that aid our understanding.
The first is ezer. It is rightly translated, “Helper.” The word is not leader, or superior (i.e., God corrected all the mistakes He had made with Adam and finally got it right with Eve as the joke goes). The word is also not servant or subservient. Helper carries the weight of filling in the holes that the other person can’t fill it. The idea is more of partnership than anything else.
The second word is neged. It is rightly translated “Fit” for him or “Suitable” for him. The intent of this word is much more along the lines of counterpart or mate (both definitions are taken from Strong’s Analytical Concordance). So, the idea behind this part of the relationships God created is: 1) man is not a totally transcendent, independent, self-sustaining, all-powerful being who can live in isolation from all others, and 2) man needs a partner, helpmate, balancer to make him complete and whole.
So, the four relationships God created in the second creation story were spirituality, ecology, psychology and intimacy. Each is a good thing. The growth in each is a good thing. Those who work in each area are treading on holy ground. Just as the first story of creation shows the orderliness within our universe, so the second story of creation shows the relationships which impact our lives to this day. This is especially true as we leave Genesis 2, what God intended for the creation which he said is "Very Good," and move into Genesis 3, The Fall.
May God bless you as you reflect on his creation of relationships. Paul
Comments